Samsung is Not the Only Mega-Company to Exploit Crypto Progress

Samsung is not the only one South Korean giant that has blockchain-related news to share. Increasingly blockchain and crypto-keen South Korean conglomerates are striking partnership deals with domestic fintech companies as they look to fast-track their moves into the sector.

As reported, perhaps the biggest South Korean conglomerate of them all, Samsung, just confirmed that Samsung Electronics’ new flagship smartphone will indeed feature a crypto wallet.

The move comes as a major business model development for Samsung, which had thus far channeled its blockchain-related operations almost exclusively through its IT services arm, Samsung SDS.

The South Korean economy is dominated by chaebol companies, family-run business groups with billion-dollar assets and numerous affiliate companies. Despite the government’s apparently standoffish stance toward cryptocurrency businesses (contrasting starkly with its perceived fervor for all things blockchain-related), chaebol companies are growing increasingly keen to join the fintech fray, with the likes of Hyundai, KT and LG already firmly committed to developing blockchain and/or cryptocurrency business units.

And per Fn News, companies like Kolon, Hanwha and SK are teaming up with existing blockchain startups as part of a strategy aimed at boosting their IT capabilities quickly so they can commercialize products faster.

Hanwha is keen to tie in its Galleria shopping and e-commerce franchise with Terra, a blockchain startup that specializes in online banking solutions – potentially allowing customers the ability to make blockchain-powered electronic transactions. The company last year announced its plans to create blockchain-powered insurance solutions.

And blockchain’s newest South Korean player, Kolon, says its residential property subsidiary is working with a company named Coinduck on a project that could enable it to allow tenants to pay rental fees in digital tokens such as cryptocurrencies – with results of a joint pilot expected “by the end of February.”